[XMR] Monero Speculation

[rangedriver]

Edit: As for Darkcoin. Comparing Darkcoin to Monero is like comparing a propeller driven fighter aircraft to a jet fighter in early 1945. The short term advantage belongs to the mature time tested technology (Darkcoin, propeller driven fighter aircraft) the long term advantage belongs to new innovative technology (Monero, jet fighter aircraft).

I like this explanation i might use it sometimes.

Actually I would say that the ability for the NSA to peek into the inner workings of Darkcoin is a cakewalk. Given that the primary antagonist of any anonymous coin are home and foreign governments, it really renders the coin useless if it cannot protect itself from it's principal nemesis. Therefore I would liken Darkcoin to a plastic toy, and XMR to a Stealth bomber.

[Hueristic]

At this level I am not just averaging down, I am doubling down.

As soon as BTC drops below 300 I will be as well.

[rdnkjdi]

Can someone tell me if there's anything keeping mixers in dark from eavesdropping?   So of I added 1200 nodes could I eaves drop on 50% of transactions?

[Hueristic]

Can someone tell me if there's anything keeping mixers in dark from eavesdropping?   So of I added 1200 nodes could I eaves drop on 50% of transactions?

Ask this of BTXpress! He's the "exploit expert"! LOL

[binaryFate]

Can someone tell me if there's anything keeping mixers in dark from eavesdropping?   So of I added 1200 nodes could I eaves drop on 50% of transactions?

The transactions are supposed to go through several "mixers", so the percentage you could eaves drop would be lower than that with half being "non honest".
But as far as I understood, unlike the mining mechanism invented with bitcoin, there is a lack of reward for masternodes owners to act honestly. They could silently eaves drop, even forming coalitions, nobody would ever know they are doing it. Since pretty much everything can be bought... it actually sounds like a purely rational way to increase their reward.

[luigi1111]

Can someone tell me if there's anything keeping mixers in dark from eavesdropping?   So of I added 1200 nodes could I eaves drop on 50% of transactions?

50% of mixes, yes. It's a bit more complicated than that as far as following transactions, because mixing rounds are anywhere from 2-8 (or more if you want). So your chance of knowing who did what over # of rounds would be (% owned ^ n), which is quite small at 8 rounds even with 50%: 0.390625% chance (of recovering the information you're looking for specifically). Obviously if you're maintaining that %, you're going to find out tons of info that you aren't necessarily looking for (or maybe you are if you're a TLA).

[rdnkjdi]

Ah mixing rounds.  Got it - that makes more sense

[e-coinomist]

At this level I am not just averaging down, I am doubling down.

As soon as BTC drops below 300 I will be as well.

Which it likely will do.

Nobody buys Bitcoin to the moon, nobody mines them at home anymore, you cannot buy weed with them at Silkroad anymore. *coughs* mostly due to a chronic shortage of Silkroads out there   
... it is accumulating a hefty amount of Jailtime for the Silkroad scoundrels actually, not nice to watch at all.

Only the BTC pumper from Gox deserves that much jailtime, but he is filthy rich by dumping our BTC right now so will evade jail for sure. That's the way it works.

[bobabouey2]

Can someone tell me if there's anything keeping mixers in dark from eavesdropping?   So of I added 1200 nodes could I eaves drop on 50% of transactions?

50% of mixes, yes. It's a bit more complicated than that as far as following transactions, because mixing rounds are anywhere from 2-8 (or more if you want). So your chance of knowing who did what over # of rounds would be (% owned ^ n), which is quite small at 8 rounds even with 50%: 0.390625% chance (of recovering the information you're looking for specifically). Obviously if you're maintaining that %, you're going to find out tons of info that you aren't necessarily looking for (or maybe you are if you're a TLA).

Another problem with this is if a masternode is deemed to be a MSB, or otherwise engaged in money laundering.  For a discussion of US laws, see here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=421615.45000

MSBs have to keep logs, which can be subpoenaed. 

So if masternodes were generally considered to be MSBs or involved in money laundering, you would be relying on a masternode network that was either being opeated illegally, or in jurisdictions with lax enforcement of laws, neither of which should bring comfort.

Monero is interesting in this legal analysis as well.   The Fincen guidance talks about "third parties" who are involved in the transmission of money needing to register, but exempts "users." "Users obtain virtual currency in order to purchase real or virtual goods and services."  So one could argue that since there is no third party involved as with Darksend, people using Monero to buy goods are not breaking any laws.

I guess Fincen could take the position that with ring signatures, all the signing parties are somehow involved in each other's transmission, and thus merely using or mining Monero would be illegal.  But its still more a stretch, and they would have to go after every user, rather than try and crack down on more centralized masternodes.

[binaryFate]

I guess Fincen could take the position that with ring signatures, all the signing parties are somehow involved in each other's transmission, and thus merely using or mining Monero would be illegal.  But its still more a stretch, and they would have to go after every user, rather than try and crack down on more centralized masternodes.

Getting your inputs to be part of a ring signature (when it's actually not you sending a tx) is a completely passive event, that requires no approbation from you whatsoever. This is completely different from a masternode that is actively mixing coins, being exactly the same as a bitcoin mixer. The latter should be easy to convince of helping money laundering, but the ring signature looks pretty much impossible to outlaw (in a country that remains reasonably democratic). I find this to be a very elegant property of cryptonote privacy.

[Hueristic]

Wrong thread but it relates to price direction.

That Monero team (whatever It's called) needs to get on marketing DirectBet addition. Monero needs an inroad into Gambling sites.

If and when It's added Monero needs even a quick gui to only use DirectBet if the Wallet is not ready yet. Making gui's with command line arguments is the easiest program there is.

[illodin]

I guess Fincen could take the position that with ring signatures, all the signing parties are somehow involved in each other's transmission, and thus merely using or mining Monero would be illegal.  But its still more a stretch, and they would have to go after every user, rather than try and crack down on more centralized masternodes.

Getting your inputs to be part of a ring signature (when it's actually not you sending a tx) is a completely passive event, that requires no approbation from you whatsoever. This is completely different from a masternode that is actively mixing coins, being exactly the same as a bitcoin mixer. The latter should be easy to convince of helping money laundering, but the ring signature looks pretty much impossible to outlaw (in a country that remains reasonably democratic). I find this to be a very elegant property of cryptonote privacy.

No, it's not exactly the same. You don't send your coins to a masternode. The money doesn't go to masternodes and from there back to users, i.e. they are not transmitting money.

[rpietila]

I wonder why anyone cares anymore about the organizations that are so obviously against the benefit of mankind. In my game, you can only play as long as you are not busted. An organization that is only a nuisance, is just that - a nuisance. And not worthy of our respect anymore. Imagine the world where we'd still live if all the previous tyrants still exercised their power.

Nah. Just ignore them. Let them play with the willing subjects, world is full of them, sadly.

[ArticMine]

I wonder why anyone cares anymore about the organizations that are so obviously against the benefit of mankind. In my game, you can only play as long as you are not busted. An organization that is only a nuisance, is just that - a nuisance. And not worthy of our respect anymore. Imagine the world where we'd still live if all the previous tyrants still exercised their power.

Nah. Just ignore them. Let them play with the willing subjects, world is full of them, sadly.

People care because regulatory risk can have a very significant impact of the value of an asset regardless of one feels about the merit or lack thereof of the regulation and / or the regulator

One needs to get back to basics here. The fundamental advantage of currencies such as XBT and XMR is that they eliminate the need for a third party in transactions. This makes regulation of the now non existent third parties both impossible and unnecessary. The fundamental difference with DRK is that it is dependent on a limited number of third parties, the masternodes. The masternodes are limited in number by the requirement that they maintain a minimum capitalization of 1000 DRK. This alone, when one considers that there is a finite amount of DRK in the 16 million to 22 million range, ensures that the number of masternodes is limited to a few thousand at most, making them an easy target for regulators. For a comparison of the regulatory risk involved here: There are easily more banks in the world than DRK masternodes.
No amount of ignoring the regulators will address the reality that the regulatory risk for DRK is orders of magnitude higher than for XMR because of the intrinsic designs of DRK and XMR just like the regulatory risk of a bank is orders of magnitude higher than that of XBT.

[thelonecrouton]

The fundamental difference with DRK is that it is dependent on a limited number of third parties, the masternodes. The masternodes are limited in number by the requirement that they maintain a minimum capitalization of 1000 DRK. This alone, when one considers that there is a finite amount of DRK in the 16 million to 22 million range, ensures that the number of masternodes is limited to a few thousand at most, making them an easy target for regulators. For a comparison of the regulatory risk involved here: There are easily more banks in the world than DRK masternodes.
No amount of ignoring the regulators will address the reality that the regulatory risk for DRK is orders of magnitude higher than for XMR because of the intrinsic designs of DRK and XMR just like the regulatory risk of a bank is orders of magnitude higher than that of XBT.

LOL, this is so mindbogglingly obtuse I don't know where to begin. 

[paratox]

I guess Fincen could take the position that with ring signatures, all the signing parties are somehow involved in each other's transmission, and thus merely using or mining Monero would be illegal.  But its still more a stretch, and they would have to go after every user, rather than try and crack down on more centralized masternodes.

Getting your inputs to be part of a ring signature (when it's actually not you sending a tx) is a completely passive event, that requires no approbation from you whatsoever. This is completely different from a masternode that is actively mixing coins, being exactly the same as a bitcoin mixer. The latter should be easy to convince of helping money laundering, but the ring signature looks pretty much impossible to outlaw (in a country that remains reasonably democratic). I find this to be a very elegant property of cryptonote privacy.

No, it's not exactly the same. You don't send your coins to a masternode. The money doesn't go to masternodes and from there back to users, i.e. they are not transmitting money.

Maybe I misunderstood something, but this quote from "eduffield" seem to say otherwise (That the transaction is routed/transmitted through the masternodes)
 

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes.

Source : https://darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

EDIT:

Even in the DRK-Wiki it says:

Masternodes are network nodes, owned by the users of Darkcoin network. They perform the coin mixing service of DarkSend which anonymizes transactions.

[stealth923]

I guess Fincen could take the position that with ring signatures, all the signing parties are somehow involved in each other's transmission, and thus merely using or mining Monero would be illegal.  But its still more a stretch, and they would have to go after every user, rather than try and crack down on more centralized masternodes.

Getting your inputs to be part of a ring signature (when it's actually not you sending a tx) is a completely passive event, that requires no approbation from you whatsoever. This is completely different from a masternode that is actively mixing coins, being exactly the same as a bitcoin mixer. The latter should be easy to convince of helping money laundering, but the ring signature looks pretty much impossible to outlaw (in a country that remains reasonably democratic). I find this to be a very elegant property of cryptonote privacy.

No, it's not exactly the same. You don't send your coins to a masternode. The money doesn't go to masternodes and from there back to users, i.e. they are not transmitting money.

Maybe I misunderstood something, but this quote from "eduffield" seem to say otherwise (That the transaction is routed/transmitted through the masternodes)
 

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes.

Source : https://darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

EDIT:

Even in the DRK-Wiki it says:

Masternodes are network nodes, owned by the users of Darkcoin network. They perform the coin mixing service of DarkSend which anonymizes transactions.

A post from 8 months ago - lol....The masternodes do not transmit money or coin of any kind.

Masternode operators cannot be implicated with any money laundering what so ever.

[paratox]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but this quote from "eduffield" seem to say otherwise (That the transaction is routed/transmitted through the masternodes)
 

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes.

Source : https://darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

EDIT:

Even in the DRK-Wiki it says:

Masternodes are network nodes, owned by the users of Darkcoin network. They perform the coin mixing service of DarkSend which anonymizes transactions.

A post from 8 months ago - lol....The masternodes do not transmit money or coin of any kind.

Masternode operators cannot be implicated with any money laundering what so ever.

If the masternodes don't coordinate the mixing process, what purpose do they have then?

[jwinterm]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but this quote from "eduffield" seem to say otherwise (That the transaction is routed/transmitted through the masternodes)
 

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes.

Source : https://darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

EDIT:

Even in the DRK-Wiki it says:

Masternodes are network nodes, owned by the users of Darkcoin network. They perform the coin mixing service of DarkSend which anonymizes transactions.

A post from 8 months ago - lol....The masternodes do not transmit money or coin of any kind.

Masternode operators cannot be implicated with any money laundering what so ever.

If the masternodes don't coordinate the mixing process, what purpose do they have then?

[luigi1111]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but this quote from "eduffield" seem to say otherwise (That the transaction is routed/transmitted through the masternodes)
 

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes.

Source : https://darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

EDIT:

Even in the DRK-Wiki it says:

Masternodes are network nodes, owned by the users of Darkcoin network. They perform the coin mixing service of DarkSend which anonymizes transactions.

A post from 8 months ago - lol....The masternodes do not transmit money or coin of any kind.

Masternode operators cannot be implicated with any money laundering what so ever.

If the masternodes don't coordinate the mixing process, what purpose do they have then?

Let's hope this doesn't turn into mudslinging (this back on forth, not my post).

Coordinate the mixing process != transmit money. Masternodes do coordinate the mixing process (and thus have a record of that particular mix), but they are never in control of users' funds.